www.keyrelevance.com copyright 2006 keyrelevance 1 keyword research learning the lingo of your...

Copyright 2006 KeyRelevance 1

www.keyrelevance.com

Keyword Research

Learning the Lingo of Your Customer

Search Engine Strategies San Jose

August 2006

Christine Churchill



What is Keyword Research?

Process of selecting keywords that are relevant to your site and are used by potential customers as query terms.

Identify the terms

customers put in search box to find your

product!



Remember…

It’s not about the keywords You want to be found on.

It’s about the keywords the End User uses to find you.



Why Do Keyword Research?

• Discover new keyword opportunities• Correct bad keyword choices

– Missing traffic– Missing sales

• Increase conversion (success) by speaking the customer’s language

• Develop list of relevant terms to target in SEO and PPC

• Monitor brand, track trends, follow correlations



Keyword Selection & Targeting

• Keyword Discovery Phase

• Keyword Evaluation Phase• Alternate Uses of Keyword Tools• Different Keyword Strategies for Home and

Internal Pages



Keyword Discovery Phase



Create Keyword List Using Diverse Sources

• Brainstorming – no judging words at this stage. Goal is to cast your net widely and generate broad list.

• Keyword lists from within company– Review company web site and print collateral

– Press Releases

– Often too much insider jargon

– May or may not be customer’s lingo

• Online and Traditional Print Magazines

• Company and Product Reviews



Create Keyword List Using Diverse Sources (cont)

• Log Files– Captures “exact phrase” that searchers entered

– Provide rich source of keyword data, but only show what’s currently working

– Expand “top keyword phrase” list in Web analytics programs past the top 25 default

• Google Sitemaps– Tells what search queries return your site



Create Keyword List Using Diverse Sources (cont)

• Site Search Box– Reveals keywords and expressions that visitors are

actually using / wanting

– Gives insight into number of words searchers are using

– Can follow visitors path and see if site converts

• Online Thesaurus– http://thesaurus.reference.com/

• Competitors– Review their web site and collateral for keywords

– Look at words they are buying in PPC

A site search box is a treasure chest of keyword data.



Learn the Lingo of the Customer

– Customer interviews• “HTML validation” vs “HTML

code checker”• “CD Duplicator” vs “CD

Burner”

– Customer Surveys and Focus Groups

– Talk to support or sales personnel who talk directly to customers

– Review Discussion Forums and Blogs

The best keywords come straight from the customer’s mouth.



Keyword Research Tools

– WordTracker

– Yahoo (Overture) Keyword Tool

– Google Keyword Tool

– Nichebot

– Trellian Keyword Discovery

– Google Sitemaps

– Google Suggest

– Google Traffic Estimator

– Google Trends

– Keyword Intelligence

– GoodKeywords.com

– SEO Book Keyword Tool

– TeRespondo



WordTracker.com

Data from Metasearch engines so data is skewed slightly by rank checking software,

not as inflated as with Google or Overture’s tools.



Yahoo (Overture) Keyword Toolhttp://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion


www.keyrelevance.comGoogle Keyword Tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Choose your language and/or country

Pull down list of keyword related information



Google Keyword ToolSite-Related Keywords – Finds kws related to your page



Keyword Discovery Provides historical data



NicheBot- provides competitive insight



Google Sitemaps- tells search queries return your site



GoodKeywords



GoodKeywords.comgives permutations



SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Toolhttp://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/

“The Swiss Army Knife of Keyword Tools”


www.keyrelevance.comTeRespondoLinkAdvisor tool gives country specific popularity (Spanish)



Target Variations of Your Keywords

Misspellings & Typos

Plurals

Abbreviations and slang

Synonyms

“Smokey Mountains”“Smoky Mountains”“Smokie Mountains”

“Point of sale”“POS”

“laptop”“laptops”

“Hotel”“Lodging”“Accommodations”



Evaluating Keywords



KW Selection Considerations

• Relevancy to Site• Keyword Popularity• User Intent • Competition• Performance



Relevancy Considerations

Relevancy means choosing the keywords that best describes what the site offers

Traffic alone isn’t the goal, you want targeted traffic that is searching for what you sell

Best bet: Find words that resonate with your target audience and are descriptive of your site



Popularity Considerations

• Popularity gives insight on traffic potential

• Being popular Is overrated

• Popular phrases – Less relevant– More competitive– Examples: “cars” or “homes”

• Less Popular– More Focused– Satisfies Need of Searcher– Higher Conversion– Less Traffic



Consider User Intent Getting inside the searcher’s head

• Understand the “why” behind the search and you can better target how to respond

– Research vs Purchase

– Stage in buying process

– Personal• Gender, age

– Psychological• FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) sells

– Knowledge-based filtering• Adjust ad copy and landing page to reflect knowledge level or interest

– Misspellings– Location from where visitors are coming from

Buying vs Browsing

“car reviews”“fast auto financing”

Buying vs Browsing

“car reviews”“fast auto financing”



Evaluating by the Stage in Buying Process

• Keywords indicate where consumer is in the Buying Process

ProblemRecognition

InformationSearch

Evaluationof

Alternatives

PurchaseDecision

Adapted From: Marketing Management by Philip Kotler

Select Alternatives



Search Behavior

Three types of search behavior:

•Navigational

- I just want to be at your web site.

• Informational

-Do hybrid cars require special maintenance?

•Transactional

-Interactive, purchase, subscribe, download

-I want financing to buy a hybrid car.



Evaluating By Competition

To compete, you need Search Term Parity

You need to see how active the competitors are within the same marketing environment

- Are they doing PPC? How much are the bids?

- How optimized are their sites?

- What’s their linkage situation?

- Anchor text



Competitive Intelligence Tools

• Hitwise– Uses data from ISPs– Provides only percentages compared to

others keyphrases, does not provide actual volume numbers

• ComScore qSearch– Similar to Hitwise– Data collected on surfing patterns of over 1.5

million users

• Trellian’s Competitive Intelligence

• Keyword Difficulty Tool

• AdGooRoo– Identifies competitors in your keyword space

• Keyword Analyzer- Pulls Overture suggestions and PPC

campaign info



Competitive Intelligence ToolsHitWise



Competitive Intelligence



Competitive Intelligence

Tells who is advertising on keyword phrases and how well they are doing.



Keywords Analyzer



Keyword Difficulty Toolhttp://www.seomoz.org/tools/kwtool.php

Tool analyzes competitive landscape and develops a percentage score on the difficulty.



Performance Considerations

• Use PPC to test candidate KWs

• Gives quick quantitative feedback on the KW performance while controlling costs

Test Keyword Performance Early



Get Feedback

Track performance down to the keyword level.



Alternative Applications of Keyword Tools



Using KW Tools to Monitor Brand



Track Keyword Relationships



Monitors Trends



Identify Keywords for Different Countries



Negative Keyword ListGoogle Keyword tool handy



Different SEO Strategies for Home and Internal Pages



Home and Internal Pages

• Home Pages – Use main phrases – hardest phrases often work best here.– Select phrases that describe the general theme of the site,

but don’t try to cover everything on your home page.

• Internal Pages– Identify most important subject of the page and pick words

that are specific to it.– Focus on words that convert visitors – move them to next

stage in buying process.– Divide and conquer. Target different phrases on different

internal pages to cover your keyword list.



Summary

The success of your search campaign depends on good keywords.

Keyword selection takes time and is an on-going activity.

Don’t use popularity as the only criteria.

Get feedback, and if term isn’t working, change it!



Thank You!

Christine Churchill


[email protected]

Phone: (972) 429-1222

www.keyrelevance.com copyright 2006 keyrelevance 1 keyword research learning the lingo of your...

Documents

keyword lists

keyword phrase list

keyword discovery phase

site slide

new keyword opportunities

treasure chest of keyword

rich source of keyword

customers lingo